English
OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE
The Japanese Society of Fisheries Oceanography (JSFO) first established the field of fisheries oceanography in the world !!
Fisheries Oceanography was defined in the narrow sense as “Oceanography is related to the development,
aquaculture, utilization, and preservation of fisheries resources, and which also provides the forecasting
methods on distributions and abundance of the resources “ by Prof. Michitaka Uda, the president of the
Japanese Society of Fisheries Oceanography (JSFO) at the time of its establishment. He suggested the main
research field of fisheries oceanography as follows: (1) oceanographic conditions regulating the distribution
of the important species for fisheries; (2) oceanographic approaches to estimate the stock abundance and
productivity of the research area; (3) oceanographic conditions to forecast the changes in distribution and stock
abundance; and (4) oceanographic contributions related to the enhancement and development of the productivity of
fishery grounds. The JSFO focused on the scientific problems of local fisheries and promoted research in cooperation
with local scientists and fishermen. Current active research fields in JSFO include the study of the relationship
between distributions of marine organisms and oceanographic conditions, acoustic assessment of fish abundance,
oceanographic approaches using satellite images, population dynamics, and modeling approaches. In particular,
studies have focused not only on fishery stocks but also on the marine environment and ecosystem dynamics.
The research field has also been extended globally as well as to the coastal areas around Japan.
These changes in the JSFO correspond to the broader definition under international consensus on fisheries oceanography as
“The study of oceanic processes affecting marine ecosystems and the relationship of these ecosystems to the abundance and availability of fish”
(P. Harrison and T. Parsons, 2000 Fisheries Oceanography, Blackwell science).
JSFO holds annual scientific meetings and symposiums on fisheries oceanography twice a year.